Reliable Sources

I saw a statistics some years ago estimating the average lifespan of a blog as six months.

This one has survived for forty times as long as that - I started it on Iain Dale's advice in early 2005 so it has now been running more than twenty years.

Every so often the traffic stats on this blog tell me that a lot of people have looked at a post I put up many years ago. 

When this happens I often check what I wrote to see if I need to put a warning on it that this is an old post and might not be up to date.

This evening I noticed that a lot of people were reading a 2009 post called "Reliable Sources."

It turned out to be a response to a a Labour MP who had posted that she had heard of a

"rumour from a number of reliable sources" of something which turned out to be completely wrong.

The details are indeed now completely out of date.

I think there are one or two things in my post, however, which are very much relevant today.

I had responded to an opinion poll which turned out to be extremely good for the Conservatives with the words,

" ... we cannot assume that the actual position is as favourable as this, and nor can we afford an atom of complacency. There is still everything to play for and no party should take the results of the coming election for granted until the returning officer has announced them."


My conclusion was much more widely relevant and has not dated at all.

I suggested that this little story warned of, quote,


"a pitfall that politicians (and everyone else) always need to watch out for: don't equate 'reliable sources' with 'people who are telling me what I want to hear.' "

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